Sunday, December 31, 2006

Bettie Page, whether dancing in her underwear, playing a maid who helps dress her female employer for an elegant night out, taking a bath with strategically placed bubbles, or becoming dominatrix or victim in bondage scenes, always seems happy and uninhibited. Her frowns or grimaces in bondage scenes are almost always replaced by a wink and a smile. While the co-stars of her pictures seem either bored or contrived, Bettie seems content and natural. Her smiling facade always hinting to her viewer that what we are seeing, whether torturous or demure, is simply a tease, a put-on, a joke. Bettie's knowing smile suggest that she's in on the joke. She knows that this is silly and harmless fun. In this way, more than any other pornographic model, Bettie not only brings us into the put-on, the fiction of the scenario, but also lets us know that out fantasies and our fetishes are really okay and healthy. It's all good clean fun with no place for shame or fear. (image found here)